Deliver Us
by theslytherinrose
Summary: A group of magical individuals has emerged with what can only be described as "special" abilities beyond those of typical witches and wizards- incredible strength, invisibility, the stopping of time, and much, much more. These individuals will have the potential to save the world... or to bring it to its knees. [Marauders' Era Heroes AU, Volume One.]
1. Freaks

**A/N: I've decided to create an AU in the style of _Heroes,_ in which many our young (Marauders' Era) witches and wizards are beginning to discover that they possess something beyond typical magical abilities. Some of them, however, have figured this out sooner than others. I'm aware that in canon, the year the Marauders, Lily, and Severus enter Hogwarts, Narcissa would be in her fifth year, Lucius in his sixth, and virtually everyone else would either be in their final year or have already graduated. For the sake of not putting eleven-year-olds on the same playing field as Death Eaters who have not only magic but highly-dangerous superpowers, I have elevated the Marauders and their entire year in age to bring them closer to everyone else (and aged up Regulus, as well). At the time the story begins, Lucius and Narcissa have recently gotten together, Lily and James are in the process of attempting to do the same, and Andromeda has not yet been disowned. This will be told from many points-of-view, but for the sake of not making every chapter more obscenely-long than it needs to be, I will likely limit each to a handful of people. Don't worry, though- just about everyone will narrate at some point. I'm planning to run with this story for a long time, so please, let me know what you think (and what works/doesn't, and I'll take that into account). **

* * *

**_Chapter One: Freaks_**

 _Lily Evans_

 _Cokeworth, West Midlands_

Lily had stared at the heavy, brown trunk that lay open on her bed for the better part of an hour, struggling to determine whether she'd remembered everything she would need for her return to Hogwarts. Now and then, she'd recalled something she'd missed and packed it away carefully, making certain to leave room in the event that she recalled something else later. After finding a place for the third extra pair of stockings, she forced herself to take a few steps back and settle into her desk chair.

 _Relax, Lily,_ she told herself. _There's no way you could possibly be underprepared. Not with the way you pack._

She knew she was just being overly cautious as a way to keep herself busy. She didn't particularly want to face her sister Petunia, who had already expressed her displeasure about Lily's return to that 'school for freaks,' as the elder Evans called it, or at least her displeasure at the level of happiness Lily showed about her departure. Lily had tried to remind herself over the last few years that Petunia's jealousy about demonstrating no magical ability while her younger sister had not only been accepted to Hogwarts but _excelled_ there did not directly translate to hatred. Certainly there was a fine line between the two, as Petunia exhibited them, but Lily reminded herself often that Petunia's comments about Lily's nature as a 'freak' had only begun after Petunia's unsuccessful letter-writing campaign to persuade Professor Dumbledore to accept her as a student, as well.

Lily sighed. She knew she could only hide in her room for so long before her parents called her to supper and she would have to dodge Petunia's pointed glances and probing, sarcastic questions. For now, though, she needed a more thought-consuming distraction than packing her trunk could provide. She pulled her sketchbook from her desk and into her lap, resting it on her crossed legs and tucking a strand of her long, red hair behind her ear as she inspected her desk for something to draw. Her gaze fell on a particularly intricate silver bracelet that her parents had given her for her last birthday, and she turned to an empty page in her book and began to sketch the bracelet's outline.

 _Screams erupted from the small, brick house as its occupants scurried out the back door, away from the invaders who had not only burst in to question them but had now set the building aflame. A group of five people wearing black robes and raised hoods cut a path through grass in the darkness cloaking the front yard, one more trailing behind, pausing now and then to glance back at the plumes of fire streaming toward the sky._

"Lily! What're you doing? _Lily!_ "

Lily blinked, shaking away the images that had possessed her mind and turning her head toward the voice. She was confronted by the dark hair and wide, panicked eyes of Petunia, who was gripping the younger girl's shoulder tightly and watching her with an open mouth.

"Why were you ignoring me?" Petunia demanded.

"I didn't hear you. How long have you been there?"

"Never mind that—what on Earth is that?"

"What is what?"

Petunia huffed and pointed to the sketchbook lying open in Lily's lap, and Lily frowned. She was quite talented at drawing, and she couldn't deny being hurt that Petunia couldn't discern that the image was supposed to be the bracelet resting on the desk in front of her. She glanced down at the sketchbook, and she froze.

The drawing of the bracelet was nowhere in sight. Instead—in a style Lily knew could belong to no one else but herself, down to the same painstakingly-realistic lines and shading that she strove for in all her drawings—she found an image of a house she'd never seen, its door destroyed as flames erupted over the threshold. A small line of cloaked figures retreated from the house, some with wands raised visibly and others reaching into their robes.

"I… I don't know," Lily muttered.

"What d'you mean, you don't know?" Petunia pressed, folding her arms over her chest. "You drew it, didn't you? What for?"

"I don't _know,_ Tuney!" cried Lily in exasperation. "This… this isn't even what I sat down to draw." She flipped through the sketchbook, turning pages desperately until she found the page onto which she'd begun copying the bracelet. The item's outline hadn't been completed; the page bore only its top and bottom lines and one on the side connecting them.

 _How did this happen? I don't even remember turning the page._

Petunia sighed irritably. "Whatever. Supper's ready."

She turned away and stalked out the door, slamming it behind her. Slowly, Lily lowered the pages of the book back into place to allow her to stare at the image of the burning house.

 _I saw this. But how?_

Shaking her head, she slammed the book closed and tossed it into her trunk with much less care than she'd shown her other belongings. She didn't have time to riddle out an answer to this question, not with her family awaiting her. She turned away and opened her bedroom door, starting toward the stairs.

* * *

 _Lucius Malfoy_

 _Lancing, West Sussex_

"We don't know!" the witch cried, rocking back and forth on her knees as she spoke through her sobs, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as though she hoped doing so would stop the pain of the Cruciatus Curse that had been inflicted on her moments earlier. "We haven't s-spoken to my b-brother in months! We don't know where he is!"

"She's telling the truth. They don't know anything."

Lucius ignored the glare cast in his direction by Bellatrix Black, who did not lower her wand from where she'd trained it on the witch and her husband where they sat on the bloodstained carpet. Lucius could only see part of Bellatrix's face beneath her hood, but he saw enough of her sneer to know that she would've strongly preferred for him to stay out of her interrogation. He, however, had been prodigiously studying Legilimency since his departure from Hogwarts, and he'd grown tired of waiting for the couple to surrender to Bellatrix's methods and had decided to reach into their minds for answers, instead.

"Stay out of this," Bellatrix said sharply. "I'll get what we need to know, and—"

"No, what you'll _get_ is a whole lot of nothing, because they don't know where he is. Let it go. We've taken too long, anyway."

Her wand still trained on the pair on the floor, Bellatrix took several slow, deliberate steps toward Lucius, moving close enough for him to see the ire in her dark eyes.

"I don't need to remind you who's in charge here, do I?"

"Not at all," said Lucius flatly, his expression unmoved by Bellatrix's attempt at intimidation. "Because I suppose I don't have to remind you that something as trivial as an age difference is responsible for that, at least for right now. I'm sure that won't last."

Bellatrix's nostrils flared, and she turned her wand on Lucius. A moment later, one of the others had caught her arm.

"Let it be," said Rodolphus Lestrange, glancing between the two of them and shaking his head. "He's right; we're running late. Let's get out of here. And you quit antagonizing her," he told Lucius, who shrugged noncommittally.

"Everyone out," snapped Bellatrix. She gestured toward the front door, and Macnair, Nott, and Rookwood started out onto the lawn without a word. When they'd gone, Bellatrix turned to Lucius with a smirk. "Well, if you're so determined to be in charge, why don't you finish things up in here? We'll wait outside."

"Fine."

Bellatrix and Rodolphus followed the others out the door, and Lucius was left with the quiet weeping and ragged breath of the witch and wizard who had huddled together on the carpet while the Death Eaters had been bickering amongst themselves.

He had no desire to kill them. These two truly had no useful information, and their deaths would not benefit him in the slightest. Besides, they were Purebloods. The witch's brother, for whom the Death Eaters were searching, had passed on information that wasn't his to trade away, and so his loss was one for which Lucius could find more justification. He thought, however, that it would be a shame to kill these two when their deaths would solve nothing.

"P-please," stammered the witch. "Don't. We d-don't know any—"

"I know." Lucius inhaled deeply, his mind racing as he considered his options. He couldn't very well leave without doing _something_ , not when Bellatrix was already so agitated. She would surely twist the story to make it sound as though he had failed, not that he had elected to take a more diplomatic path than the one she would've chosen.

A sudden movement from the floor caught his attention, snapping him back to the present from his thoughts as the wizard launched to his feet, tackling Lucius to the ground. Lucius let out a cry of frustration, gripping the man's shoulders hard and trying to push him away. He delivered a swift punch to the man's stomach, leading him to fall coughing and spluttering onto the carpet as Lucius pushed himself to his feet and the witch cried out from a few paces away. The witch lunged for her wand, which had been resting on the coffee table since the Death Eaters had confiscated it upon their arrival, and Lucius stepped forward, frowning and willing himself to be quicker than the woman.

As he threw out his hand for the wand, a jet of flame ripped across the table and across the floor to the nearby sofa, which ignited.

The witch screamed. Lucius stared at the fire, which began immediately to expand outward, and reached reflexively into his robes to find that his wand remained undisturbed in his pocket.

 _How the absolute hell—_

"Get back!"

The wizard, who had returned to his feet, grabbed the witch's arm and pulled her away from the flames, stumbling backward in his haste and nearly losing his footing. In a state of pure panic, judging by his expression, he looked to Lucius, who shook his head.

"Out. Don't use the front door."

Without another word, the pair shot off through the house, and Lucius lingered a moment longer, watching the fire he hadn't meant to conjure as it devoured the couple's drawing room. Shortly, though, the smell of the smoke became too much to bear, and he hurried out onto the grass, scanning the night for signs of movement to locate the others. Someone—he couldn't tell who it was, as the group was too far away across the lawn for him to catch sight of anyone's face—waved him forward, and he broke into a jog, stealing an occasional glance over his shoulder and wondering whether the witch and wizard had made it out before the house had been completely engulfed.

* * *

 _Narcissa Black_

 _Number 12 Grimmuald Place, London_

"Yes, that was this one's mother—you see the resemblance?"

Narcissa kept her focus trained deliberately on the plate of food in front of her, refusing to look at the mounted house-elf head Aunt Walburga had taken to flashing around the table. She saw her relatives nod in her periphery, a few of them laughing quietly or making noises of approval, and Narcissa tried hard not to frown. She thought the whole display was rather grotesque, especially when her aunt was determined to show off the mounted head in front of the elf's son, a young one Narcissa believed was called Kreacher. The small elf was holding perfectly still, bent in a deep bow at Walburga's side as she gestured to him with the hand that wasn't holding what remained of his mother.

 _You'd better hope you're not giving your sons any ideas,_ thought Narcissa with a small shake of her head. She glanced to her cousins Sirius and Regulus, who sat across the table, Sirius looking very visibly bored and Regulus keeping his face blank as he finished his last few bites of pudding. If she found her aunt's ramblings this tedious, she couldn't imagine how ready her cousins were to be out of the house. Cygnus and Druella, Narcissa's parents, had insisted on bringing her to supper with Aunt Walburga, Uncle Orion, and their sons for a final attempt at seeming like a family before the Blacks ages seventeen and below returned to Hogwarts. As usual, Narcissa found herself incredibly ready to be far away from her parents and reunited with her friends.

 _Some of them, at least,_ she thought, sighing as she sipped her drink. She was entering her final year at the Wizarding school, which meant that a large portion of the people she'd associated with would not be returning with her, as they'd graduated after the last term. This included her boyfriend, as she'd only been able to refer to him for a few short months, and as thrilled as she was to be leaving home, she was considerably less excited about how difficult it was going to become to see Lucius.

Narcissa's gaze landed on the empty chair on the other side of her sister Andromeda, which should have been filled by Bellatrix. Narcissa knew her eldest sister was out on some sort of mission with the Death Eaters and that Lucius was likely with her, but neither of them had given her any indication as to what they were doing. Cygnus and Druella had, naturally, lied to the rest of the family about the location of their missing daughter in order to avoid stirring up controversy. ' _Out with the eldest Lestrange boy,_ 'they'd said. That was probably true, Narcissa knew, but not in the sense she was certain her aunt and uncle suspected. Orion and Walburga weren't likely to protest, if they'd known the truth, but since Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor, Narcissa's parents had refused to discuss darker matters in front of him, as they'd found him suddenly much less trustworthy.

"Sirius, now that everyone's finished eating, why don't you take your cousins on a tour of the house?" asked Walburga, setting the elf-head on the table beside her plate as she looked to her eldest son.

"They've seen it a million times, Mother." Sirius sighed irritably, draining his glass and setting it down hard on the table.

"Show them again." Orion watched his son with narrowed eyes, and his voice was cold and left no room for argument.

Sirius scooted back, his chair scraping the floor loudly as he did so, and held out his arm, gesturing toward the doors. "Shall we?" he asked, looking from Andromeda to Narcissa and back again. The sisters stood, moving much more quietly than had their cousin, and followed him from the dining room.

"Walburga's pleasant as always."

Narcissa looked up as the voice spoke into her ear, and she met her sister's eyes with a smile.

"I'm honestly surprised she didn't wait for the beheading and make us all watch," Narcissa muttered back.

Andromeda raised a hand to her mouth to stifle her laugh, and several paces ahead of them, Sirius glanced over his shoulder.

"What're you two going on about?" he asked.

"Your mother's something else, Sirius," said Andromeda, grabbing Narcissa's hand and pulling her along until they had caught up with their cousin. Narcissa blushed, glancing to the portraits along the walls as they walked in order to hide her embarrassment. She wouldn't have admitted speaking ill of Sirius's mother, but he and Andromeda tended to joke more often than he and herself, so she supposed it wouldn't stir up too much trouble. Still, she wondered whether they'd been close enough to the dining room for Walburga to hear.

"She certainly is." Sirius rolled his eyes as he started up the stairs, Narcissa and Andromeda directly behind him. "You'll be the one stuck with her, though, Andromeda. Narcissa and Regulus and I will be safe at Hogwarts, and you'll be at home, probably getting dragged over here to hear her prattle on about which house-elves she's murdered recently."

"Have fun," said Narcissa, elbowing her sister lightly in the arm.

"Oh, absolutely," Andromeda grumbled. "Not that I've told our parents, yet, but I've other plans."

"You haven't told me, either." Narcissa frowned.

"What're you planning, Andi?" asked Sirius, turning around and beginning to take the steps backward. Narcissa's heart missed a beat as she watched him, feeling almost certain that one wrong move could see her cousin severely injured and, knowing her parents, herself blamed for it. "Going to run off and join a band or something?"

"I certainly am." Andromeda tossed her brown hair over her shoulder and flashed Sirius a smile. "Actually, I'm just hoping to be able to see friends and not stay shut up in the house all the time."

 _Good luck with that one._ Narcissa didn't dare say this aloud. She didn't want to upset Andromeda with her pessimism, but she herself had barely been allowed to leave their home over the holidays without supervision or some highly-believable excuse for where she was going. Though her sister was older, she knew their parents were strict enough not to be willing to bend their rules without receiving something in return, such as the promise of their daughters making a decent marital match. This was, Narcissa knew, one of the reasons Cygnus and Druella hadn't attempted to stop Bellatrix from joining the Death Eaters at such a young age, apart from the fact that Bellatrix likely would've done as she pleased anyway. Cygnus and Druella did truly hope she married one of the respectable Pureblood men with which she served, and they were particularly fond of Rodolphus Lestrange.

Narcissa had dealt enough with her parents' meddling in her love life for one lifetime. Her mother had forced her into a number of arranged relationships that had ended poorly for one reason or another, typically after Narcissa had decided she'd had enough of pretending to be interested in whatever fool her mother had deemed worthy. This had been true of Gilderoy Lockhart, at least. Others, though, she'd had to get away from for less wholesome reasons than boredom and idiocy. Her hand moved unconsciously to her right hip, brushing against the spot where, beneath her skirts, she still had a scar that magic hadn't been able to remove.

She pushed these memories away and allowed herself to think for a moment instead of the man she'd chosen to be with, to whom, thankfully, her parents did not object. They were aware of her relationship, but she wasn't always honest about whom she was visiting, when she traveled to Malfoy Manor—the less her parents knew, she reasoned, the less they could meddle.

"Sirius, you're going to fall," said Andromeda with a laugh.

"Am not."

The group had nearly reached the top of the steps, now, and when Andromeda paused, Narcissa did the same, raising a brow at her sister as the elder girl turned around on the step on which she stood.

"Andi, I swear to Merlin—"

"Oh, hush, Cissy, I'll be fine."

"You're wearing a _dress._ You're going to trip."

"You're right beside me. Just don't let me fall, then."

"Sirius," said Narcissa, exasperated, "talk sense into her, please."

"Right, like she'll listen to me."

Andromeda had already begun to take her first backward step, her foot moving tentatively and nearly catching on the red hem of her skirt. Narcissa made a jerking movement to reach for her sister, but Andromeda waved her off.

"I'm _fine,_ Cissy."

"What's the point in this?" Narcissa demanded.

"Having fun."

Narcissa rolled her eyes, trying to order herself to relax. She remained still as she watched her sister ascend, taking careful steps backward, her hand hovering just above the rail. Sirius hurried up to the landing as Andromeda approached, and by the time Andromeda was only a few steps from joining him, Narcissa had started to relax slightly. _She may be ridiculous, but I love her,_ the younger sister thought, starting upward again while facing the proper way.

Everything that followed happened so quickly that Narcissa didn't comprehend it all at once.

Andromeda let out a gasp as her heel snagged on a ripped patch of carpet and she lost her footing. She slipped, reaching for the railing, which was far too old to be considered safe and shifted as her weight met it, buckling and cracking and sending Andromeda toward the ground below as she began to fall sideways off the stairs.

Her mind in a full-blown panic, Narcissa lunged for her sister, willing Andromeda to freeze, to stop falling.

And she did.

For only a moment, the shriek that had begun to burst from the elder sister's lungs halted, as did her body and that of Sirius, who had reached for her. Narcissa gasped, her eyes flicking between her sister and her cousin as she failed to understand what was happening. Then, the movement and sound surrounding her resumed, Sirius's hand reaching Andromeda first and pulling her back onto the steps as effortlessly as he might move a feather. With only one hand on her arm, he lifted her from her feet and onto the landing beside him, wide-eyed and trembling though she was—but safe.

"Sirius," Narcissa began breathlessly, "what did you just—?"

"Adrenaline," he said with a shrug.

" _What?_ " Narcissa stared at him in disbelief. "But what about—didn't you see, when everything stopped—"

"What're you talking about?" asked Sirius, frowning. Narcissa watched him carefully for a long moment and searched his face for sincerity, ignoring her sister, who had collapsed into a chair on the landing and was breathing heavily as she attempted to calm herself down. Narcissa believed she knew Sirius well enough to tell when he was lying, and though she'd detected as much when he'd blamed adrenaline for his ease in retrieving Andromeda, she saw nothing in his expression to indicate that he had any idea what she was talking about, now.

"Nothing," she muttered. "I think I've had enough excitement."

She turned away and started down the steps again, but when she'd made it roughly halfway, she paused, glancing back up at the others. She stared at them hard, wishing that they would halt in their motions, Sirius as he reached for his cousin to help her to stand and Andromeda as she began to rise from her chair.

All at once, they froze as suddenly as they had moments before, their bodies paused so awkwardly mid-motion that Narcissa knew they couldn't be doing so of their own will. Not for long, anyway. Slowly, she took a few steps upward, watching them. Still, they did not move.

Something else was wrong. The stairway was too silent—the large clock hanging on the wall had ceased in its ticking. Her heart pounding, Narcissa turned her head toward it to find that its hands, like Sirius and Andromeda, had paused in their motion.

 _Did I… no, there's no way that I… stopped time?_

Her breathing had become incredibly shallow, and she felt panic setting in. She closed her eyes and focused all her strength on wishing everything around her would begin to move once again, and when she heard the obnoxious _tick_ of the clock to her right, she opened her eyes to find that Andromeda and Sirius had resumed their motion.

"Hey," said Andromeda, blinking as Narcissa met her gaze. "Weren't you just down there?"

Narcissa glanced down to the step she'd been standing on before the others had frozen, and her mouth went dry.

"No. You're going mad, Andi," she said, and then she turned away, hurrying back to the dining room, where things were, thankfully, much more boring.


	2. Pain and Probability

_**Chapter Two: Pain and Probability**_

 _Bellatrix Black_

 _Lestrange Manor, Somerset_

Bellatrix glared into the fireplace, her brown eyes fixed on the flames with a murderous intensity she typically saved for her victims. She took a long drink from her glass and found that the burning that filled her throat as she swallowed was nowhere near strong enough to distract her from her agitation.

 _Does he think he can get away with talking to me like that?_ she thought, scowling. _I'm the Dark Lord's favorite. Me. Nothing will change now that Malfoy's out of school. Absolutely nothing._

Despite the firmness of her mental assertions, a sliver of doubt had begun to creep in through the cracks in her confident exterior. She couldn't deny that the Dark Lord had on multiple occasions appeared pleased with the progress Lucius had made, and the boy had been tasked with joining the more experienced recruits more frequently over the last month than Bellatrix would've liked. She knew she was incredibly skilled, and her dedication to their cause was unmatched. Still, she hated the idea of competition for the Dark Lord's favor, especially from the boyfriend of her youngest sister. Bellatrix cared too much for Narcissa to intentionally hurt her, which meant that eliminating the competition for the top spot in the Death Eaters was impossible, or, at the very least, highly problematic.

"It's over, Bella. You can breathe."

Bellatrix shifted her glare to Rodolphus Lestrange, who sat beside her on the sofa looking relatively amused. His hair was dark and his jaw rather square, and she found him handsome, though she was far too irritated at the moment to care.

"We should've gotten more information from them," she snapped. "He's going to be furious."

"They didn't know anything more," said Rodolphus, shrugging. "We could've tortured them a while longer, yes, but it wouldn't have helped us if they had literally nothing to tell."

"And you believe that? That they knew nothing?"

Rodolphus threw back the remainder of his drink. "Course I do," he said, setting the now-empty glass down on the table beside him. "Malfoy's damn good at Legilimency. If he says—"

"Of course." Bellatrix shot Rodolphus a withering look. "We'll believe anything he says because he's a halfway-decent Legilimens."

"He got into your mind during training, didn't he?"

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Rodolphus chuckled, resting his hand on Bellatrix's knee. "Don't be so tense. You've got nothing to worry about. No one can use the Cruciatus Curse like you can, and the Dark Lord knows it."

"Hm," said Bellatrix noncommittally, looking back into the flames. She knew Rodolphus was right about that, at least. Bellatrix could cast circles around any of the other Death Eaters with that particular spell. None of them enjoyed being paired with her when their training forced them to duel one another, and she was highly proud of this knowledge. She was one of very few women in their ranks, and quite a few of the men were frightened of her. She'd proven herself early-on by knocking out Walden Macnair with the intensity of her Cruciatus Curse, and very seldom had anyone questioned her authority since.

"I need your help with something."

Bellatrix raised a brow, still not shifting her attention back to Rodolphus. "What?"

"I need you to help me test something, and if it works the way I think it will, I need you not to tell anyone about it."

At this, she did look at him. "Why?"

"Because I… just see for yourself, all right?"

Bellatrix shrugged. "You're going to have to explain, if you plan on making any sort of sense."

Rodolphus sighed. "Take out your wand."

Bellatrix frowned, her dark brows drawing closer together as she retrieved her wand from the inside pocket of the cloak she'd draped over the sofa's arm to her left.

"Bella, try to hurt me."

She stared at him. No one had ever asked her something like that before, and she'd expected it least of all from Rodolphus, who knew very well exactly of what she was capable. If he was going to be enough of an idiot to ask her that, however, she wasn't going to argue with him. She opened her mouth, her favorite curse on the tip of her tongue, but he cut her off with a shake of his head.

"Don't use the Cruciatus Curse. I need you to use something that would do physical damage."

Bellatrix shrugged, mildly disappointed that her spell of choice was off-limits but well-versed in other methods of injuring others. " _Diffindo._ "

As though sliced with a knife, the front of Rodolphus's robes tore open in a neat cut spanning the length of his chest. Bellatrix expected a cry of pain to enter the air, but Rodolphus remained silent, watching her with a quirked brow. Bellatrix frowned severely, glancing from his face to the tear in his robes and back again.

"The hell? Didn't that hurt?"

"Look at it, Bella. Really look."

Scowling, she shifted her gaze down once again from his face to his chest. Though his robes were torn, his skin was not. It was still perfectly smooth, and she could not understand.

"What did you do?" she demanded. "A non-verbal protection spell?"

Rodolphus shook his head, a grin creeping onto his lips. "No. I didn't do anything."

"That's a damn lie," said Bellatrix, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him. "If you're insinuating that I missed, then—"

"Bella. Listen to me." Rodolphus laid a hand on either side of her face, leaning closer to her over the distance separating them on the sofa. The urge to lean backward swept over her, but she resisted it, if just barely. "I know you didn't miss. You never miss. The point is that your spell should've hurt me, and it didn't. It didn't even break the skin."

At this, she did pull away, her face growing hot as she reached into her cloak for the knife she kept there for the times she felt like inflicting pain in ways other than her typical arsenal of curses. Without a second's hesitation, she swung her arm toward Rodolphus, aiming for the same spot near his heart where she'd deployed her spell. Instead of sinking into his flesh, the knife glanced off the surface as though he were made of stone.

"What. The. Hell."

"Did you just try to stab me? Without any warning?" Rodolphus's tone was incredulous and possibly a bit hurt, but Bellatrix ignored it.

" _Why can't I hurt you?_ " she demanded, her eyes wild as she stared at him.

"I don't know!" he cried, exasperated. "But now I know I'm not just imagining things or getting lucky. Nott tried to break my nose last week and it shattered a bone in his hand, but I didn't feel a damn thing. This has been going on for a while, Bella. I just haven't known where to even begin talking about it."

"We have to tell the Dark Lord," she said quickly. "He'll want to use this."

"And that's exactly why we're _not_ telling him."

Bellatrix stared at Rodolphus, uncertain whether she had actually heard him. "What?" she prompted, her eyes narrowing.

"I don't want him to know until I've figured out what's happening to me. It could be temporary—I could've been exposed to some potion or something that's acting like a protection spell, and it could wear off anytime. I don't want to get his hopes up that I've figured out something that might be helpful and then have it turn out to be worthless."

For a long moment, she watched him, considering. The idea of withholding anything from the Dark Lord appalled her, but she couldn't deny that Rodolphus was right. The punishment for giving the Dark Lord false hope would likely be greater than that for keeping something beneficial from him for a little while longer.

"Fine," she said flatly. "But I want to know the _second_ you learn anything."

"Of course." He reached out for her hand, eyes watching hers closely for signs of disapproval, and drew it slowly to his lips. As he kissed her hand, she used it to hold onto her wand more tightly.

* * *

 _Andromeda Black_

 _Number 12 Grimmuald Place, London_

Andromeda knew she probably shouldn't be nosing through her cousin's things while he had returned to the first floor to check on her sister, but she was too bored to care for propriety, at the moment. She was concerned for Narcissa; the youngest Black sister had acted incredibly oddly on the stairs, and Andromeda doubted it had to do completely with the accident that had almost transpired. Andromeda would've liked to believe that she herself wouldn't have fallen through the railing without Sirius's intervention—that she would've regained her footing and righted herself. She knew, though, that it wasn't true. She should've listened to Narcissa and stopped playing the fool simply because she had the freedom to do so without their parents in the room.

Free moments without the oversight of Cygnus and Druella were difficult to come by, these days. Andromeda had meant what she'd told Narcissa and Sirius about what she planned to do while they were away at Hogwarts. She wanted to be trapped alone—because Bellatrix surely had _more important_ things to do than frittering away her time at home—with her parents as little as humanly possible. Many of Andromeda's friends had graduated with her and would hopefully be available for her to visit now that she found herself with more free time than she would like.

Some of those friends, however, were not people with whom her family would condone her association.

She pulled her thoughts away from the subject of those people as quickly as she always did when she found them starting to draw her attention to dangerous places. She knew her father was skilled in Legilimency, and Cygnus was also fond of punishing his daughters for rule-breaking. Andromeda had developed a remarkable talent over her nineteen years for keeping her head clear of anything incriminating when she was within several houses' radius of her parents. She'd suffered her share of punishments over the years without bringing more pain onto herself unnecessarily.

She distracted herself by continuing to paw through Sirius's bookshelf and examine the items he'd stashed among and behind the volumes. Several of the items were Muggle things she didn't have names for, but she did recognize a deck of playing cards. She'd seen one at school being used by—

 _Stop it, Andi._

She sat at the edge of Sirius's desk chair, feeling severely out-of-place in her dinner gown, and pulled the deck carefully from its box, beginning to shuffle the cards as she'd been taught. Andromeda inhaled deeply and closed her eyes as the cards moved through her hands, directing the entirety of her focus to them as individual items drifting through a unified space. She then envisioned the same card she always selected first: the eight of hearts. She willed herself to know exactly where it was as she continued to shuffle—to feel the card moving through the deck toward her at her command. All at once, she paused in her shuffling, pulled a card from near the back of the deck, and rested it on Sirius's desk.

She opened her eyes and turned the card over slowly to find the eight of hearts staring up at her. She smirked.

"I don't recall telling you that you could mess about with my things."

Andromeda jumped, inadvertently dropping the deck to the floor. The cards scattered, and she sighed heavily as she turned in the chair to face Sirius. His tone had been teasing, as was the grin on his lips, and he hurried forward to crouch beside her and scoop up the cards.

"Stop sneaking up on me," said Andromeda, thumping her cousin on the shoulder. "It's rude."

"So's stealing my cards, but you don't hear me complaining."

"I do, actually."

Sirius chuckled. He stood once again and plopped down onto his bed, taking over in the shuffling of the cards. "Anyway, your sister's fine. She's talking to Regulus, and they're avoiding both sets of our parents. They've got the right idea, I'd say."

"I can't believe your mum actually has house-elves beheaded." Andromeda grimaced. "Shouldn't there be a law against that or something?"

"There should be a law against just about everything the _Noble and Most Ancient House of Black_ does," said Sirius, the words rolling off his tongue with the same level of venom he might've used behind an Unforgivable Curse. He shook his head, frowning. "Did I hear my parents wrong or are yours actually attempting to arrange marriages for you and your sisters?"

"Don't." Andromeda rolled her eyes. "I don't want to talk about it."

Sirius raised his hands in surrender. "Fine, whatever you want."

A moment of silence passed between them, and then Andromeda sighed. "It's just me, currently. Cissy and Bella have actually made progress on the romantic front on their own, whereas I… well, honestly, I haven't been looking. I just wanted to get myself through school without getting dragged into all that drama, and now that I've been out for over a year, our parents act like I'm going to die alone because I'm not engaged. It's ludicrous."

Sirius sighed heavily. "Of course it is. I've just stopped expecting anything different from our family. What do you think it is?" he asked, holding up a card with its back to her. Andromeda paused, staring at the deck and considering it for a long moment. She envisioned the cards sliding through her hands as though she were shuffling them once again and then pausing on the particular card Sirius had chosen.

"Seven of clubs."

Sirius grinned. "No, it—hang on." He glanced to the card and back to Andromeda, and he nodded slowly. "All right, well-played. Go again." He set the first card on the bed beside him and drew another.

She stared at the back of the card and drew in a long breath. "Jack of diamonds."

Sirius blinked. "All right, what spell are you using? I've never heard of anything that—"

Andromeda laughed, rising from the chair and crossing the distance separating her from her cousin to pluck the card from his hand. She smiled triumphantly when she saw that she'd been right.

She hadn't exactly had any doubt that she would be, but it was comforting nonetheless to see the proof.

"No magic," she told Sirius, a smirk sliding onto her lips. "I'm just brilliant. Come on, let's go find Cissy and Regulus."

She started toward the door, and in an instant, Sirius was at her side. He snatched the card from her hands and tossed it back onto his bed with the others, shutting the door to his room behind them as they returned to the landing. Andromeda supposed he didn't want to risk his parents seeing his Muggle possessions, and she couldn't blame him. She pushed thoughts of cards and predictions from her mind as they began to descend the steps.

She would have time, she told herself, to think about things and try to understand them more clearly when she was farther from her parents. Until then, she would put her mental walls back into place.


End file.
